2018 Year in review: David recounts a year in games

With 2018 coming to a close, we can all look back and see that this year was a turbulent one, with ups and downs all throughout the year. I wanted to go over some of the stuff I experienced this year in gaming.

I suck at Battle Royale

Yep, that is right. How do I know? Well one of the games I tried this year was Cyanide & Happiness – Rapture Rejects. It is a fun little game drawn up in the C&H cartoon style, with a 3/4 view game-play field, battle-royale style. While I enjoyed playing the game, having gone 0-kills (yes, I never killed anyone) I figured battle-royale games were not for me. You can check it out for yourself and see, or if you like those types of games, give it a go.

One of the games I have been playing since 2011 is World of Tanks. While I had seemingly taken a break from WoT because I was tired of some of the aspects of the game, it has come more common for me this year to play it. The reason behind this is because a co-worker of mine recently got back into the game, and wanted to start platooning together. We were pretty big into 7 Days to Die earlier this year, but when the next update didn’t happen, most of the interest in that game waned, and we moved on. So with another friend playing, the game started to become fun once again, but this year is also a big year for World of Tanks, with War Gaming celebrating its 10 year anniversary. This was big, and to thank all the players War Gaming gave everyone a special prize pack based upon the date of your account creating and how long you have been playing.

Because I had started in late open beta in 2011 (yes it has been that long) I was gifted with the 2nd highest level of reward, pertaining to some special in game badges, a boat-load of in-game money etc…. needless to say I was pleased with the haul, but it came with a downside. Since the release of this prize package, the teams have been terrible, with one-sided wins and losses all over the place. I am thinking a lot of players who left the game years ago have come back to see what has changed, and they forgot how to play, or people are just that bad. I know I am not a great player, but at least I give it my best every match.

2018 was also a big year for me with Bethesda games. Yes I did (briefly) play in the Fallout 76 BETA, which was interesting. I enjoyed it, but it was also a huge year for me with ‘The Elder Scrolls V – Skyrim’. When Bethesda launched Skyrim Special Edition in 2016, I restarted playing the original once again. I often seem to fire up the older games when they announce and release a game, and this was no different … or was it? This time I discovered the joys (and heartaches) of modding.

Look at those rays

A Sword Mod, upgraded with my smithing skills

My collection of goods on Display

This is from a creepy quest mod that was a lot of fun to play.

Part of the popularity of Bethesda games is their ability to be modded, and there is a whole community and several websites across the globe dedicated to sharing these mods. The biggest is The Nexus, which holds a mod library for not only Bethesda games, but about 640 games in total. Mod artists and creators can freely post and share their mods for others to download. The Nexus has its own mod manager program, which can aid in downloading, installing and sorting any mods you decide to use.

Now as I said earlier I started back in 2016 playing the original Skyrim again, having never beat any of the main story-lines, and eventually getting bored back in 2012 with it. With mods, I was able to change the scenery, add quests and items as well as play with different follower companions, or even have more than the default 1 or 2. I soon learned that there is a downside to modding on such an old game though, as Skyrim was designed and released in 2011, and as such most of the technology works on 32-bit architecture. With the new hardware available today, most of it is just not going to be utilized. There is also a limit as to how many mods you can run before Skyrim starts to get unstable.

Having played the game for countless hours, with a mod list that ranged in the 200’s, the game started to have issues. Luckily Steam put the special Edition on 50% off and I snapped that up, and of course, started modding it before playing.

Playing so much allows you to hone your skills

Armed with what I learned from modding the original Skyrim, I started modding my Special Edition carefully, taking about a week to get all the mods picked and fine-tuned on their install. I know this might sound tedious, but nothing is more frustrating when you are several hours into the game and it gets all wonky and you have to start again. My patience paid off and after spending about 400 hours this year playing Skyrim Special Edition, I managed to finish all the main quest-lines, all the DLC’s as well as pretty much all the side quests. My character is at a level I’ve never obtained before, and I am very pleased with my progress.

Another steam sale put another new game into my hands, one that I’ve had my eye on since it launched in 2016, but its launch didn’t meet the expectations of its fans. It received a ton of bad press because of this, but since then, and a few updates later, the game seems to have turned itself around and become something that it should have been at launch. Have you guessed what I am talking about yet? If not, I will tell you – No Man’s Sky.

This game made this list only because I started playing it late 2018 (December actually) and it has pretty much been taking the majority of the time I have been able to play. While the learning curve is a bit involved, the game itself is pretty fun. I have started several saves, as the first couple I was learning how to do things, and optimizing how I was to best do certain things. One of my saves got bugged somehow, and moved me to the Galactic Core (that is the end game) so I started over with my friend Cory and so far the game has been exciting. It might be worth checking it out if you haven’t, or if you did but stopped. A lot has changed.

In the end it might seem like I didn’t play that many different games, but this list highlights the ones that I played the most during the year. I will continue to play these ones as well, I am looking forward to trying out more new games in 2019.

Why not join our Discord server and chat with me about your experiences in your games, or any of the games I mentioned. Maybe join me in a match in World of Tanks, or meet up with me in No Man’s Sky.